You recommended the Kirisun PT4200 VHF portable Radio. What is the range? And how do you charge the battery in the vehicle? They seem to be sold with a "rapid rate charger" which I assume is a 220 volt charger.

I really need to buy a Patrol.... ;). I do monitor here from time to time.

The PT4200 has long since been superceded by the PT3600 portable3 radio, which is a brilliant design. It is even more rugged than the PT4200 and has proven itself to be incredibly reliable.

You are correct that the charger is for 220v AC but the radio can be charged from a 12v supply as well by using an optional DC cigarette Lighter cable that plugs into the charger pocket, instead of the 220v AC mains power pack.

Range is dependent on many factors, but in general between two vehicles when the radios are both used in two vehicles you could expect about 1 - 1.5km, but by using two magnetic base antennas then we are looking at 5-6km, assuming level road with no obstacles in both cases.

Fixed mobile radios would provide at least double these distances, depending on how the outside antenna is mounted.

Range is dependent on many factors, but in general between two vehicles when the radios are both used in two vehicles you could expect about 1 - 1.5km, but by using two magnetic base antennas then we are looking at 5-6km, assuming level road with no obstacles in both cases.

Fixed mobile radios would provide at least double these distances, depending on how the outside antenna is mounted.

Best place for a mag antenna, or if you can and an outside antenna for maximum efficiency, is the middle of the vehicle's roof. Hand held with a mag antenna also sends at a lower power setting than a fixed mobile radio.

And keep in mind, radio wave works like a laser light, you should have clear line of sight with no obstacles as Family_Dog stated for the best the communication.

I bought three 0.5w Bosvark hand-held radios with magnetic base extension antennas from you some time ago for my safari operation. Now that Bosvarks are no longer available, what radios would I need to buy that would enable comms between the old an the new? I may want to buy another two units.

I really don't want to buy new radios to replace the three hand-held units I already have.

Just by the way, what happened to the Bosvark set-up, why did it disappear?

The Bosvark was a nice radio, however we stopped selling them a while ago because of a numbers game - the Bosvarks amounted to about 1% of out total radio sales so stocking the radio did not make economic sense in that we needed to keep a spares inventory as well.

In its place, we have the Kirisun PT260 Licence-Free portable radio which shares the same frequencies as the Bosvark but not the same tones, nor in the same channel order. We can, however, program the PT260 L/F radio to match the first 16 channels of the Bosvark, on request.

The PT260 has done extremely well for itself and we have sold about 6000 of these units, with only two comebacks. First comeback was for a radio that was dropped off a 20m grain silo on to a concrete road, while the other was for a radio that had been unceremoniously driven over - both radios from the same Company! In each of these cases the radios still worked but by the time we had replaced casings, antennas & batteries the price was close to 70% of a new radio, so they were replaced with new radios.

Welcome back here with us Eric.
Thanks for the update.
Maybe you want to say something about the digital trend please.

Hi Jorrie,

Certainly, why not?

Practically all modern vehicles have very limited space for a two-way radio, and while there are various VHF Remote Mount Radios available, these have always been very expensive. Hytera ia one of the "Big Five" two-way radio manufacturers in the world and they have now come up with a cost-effective winner!

The Hytera MD655 is a fully remote mount radio which means the radio unit itself may be mounted anywhere convenient (subject to the standard microphone cable length of 2.2M, 6M optionally available), for example under a seat etc. The antenna and power cable connections go to the radio. The remote microphone is a specialised unit containing a LCD Display (CH 1, Ch 2 etc) and incorporates a very efficient loudspeaker as well as the channel up-down buttons and various other programmable function buttons.

The MD655 radio is a full 25w meeting IP54 Industry rating and exceeding the Shock, Vibration and Relative Humidity parameters as set by the USA MIL-STD-810 C / D / E / F / G specification. It is fully capable of both Analog (as in conventional radios) or Digital Radio Mode (DRM Tier II) and covers the full VHF band from 137 to 174MHz. UHF Models are also available but these do not apply to ORRA and Hilux Club frequencies.

We now have stock of these radios because we do believe it will be a winner!